The Made in the Berkshires Festival

Posted
Thursday, November 17, 2016 6:00 am

THE SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON FILMS | CAPSULES OF SUNDAY’S PROGRAM

Sunday’s program at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield was featured as “performance blocks,” that allowed “audiences to enjoy the breadth and depth of the artistic talent that has landed in Berkshire County, while celebrating the best in the visual and performing arts.” The films included:

“Touch the Air”: By composer/producer Alice Spatz and filmmaker Eric Shepherd with still photography by Larry Spatz and recording engineer Bob Shepherd of Otis Manor Studios, in collaboration with the late U.S. Poet Laureate and WWII veteran William Jay Smith of Cummington.

As the film began, Smith recites his most beloved poems in the warmth and comfort of home, leading into the verses accompanied by a symphony of musical instruments, and vocalists alongside moving imagery carefully sought to represent the literature. A drone was used to mimic a state of flight. “I am constantly amazed how this work still moves me, ” said Alice Spatz.

“We had begun shooting the film,” said Eric Shepherd of Silver Whip Media, “but it was at [William Jay Smith’s] memorial service in New York City that the music resonated with me and the audience. We knew we were really onto something significant.”

He added, “We chose different locations in the Berkshires to enhance the film with abstract imagery so not to distract the viewer’s mind from experiencing the feelings evoked from the poems.”

Smith died of complications of pneumonia at the age 97 on Aug. 18, 2015. Sadly. he never got to hear or see the finished product of this collaboration.

“Grazers”: A documentary by director/producers Sarah Teale and Lisa F. Jackson, gives an inside look into a small group of upstate New York cattle farmers’ rise to success through failure and adversity encountered during the span of two years. The film demonstrated their struggles, near collapse, and intimate portrait of the characters while growing a business of “farm-to-table” food through a co-op.

“Bob and The Trees”: By writer/director Diego Ongaro and Chris Teague, co-director of photography.

The film tells the story of Bob, a 50-year-old rapping logger from the Berkshires, with such a yearning for golf that even on snowy landscapes he swings his driver. The film, shot in the Berkshires, depicts Bob and his family business struggling during a dark and cold, deep snow winter.

The film won an award in the 2015 Sundance Film Festival World Premiere and Karlovy Vary 2015 International Film Festival in addition to other credits.

After the film, Hilary Somers Deely and Barbara Sims called the main character of the film, Bob Tarasuk of Sandisfi eld, Ongaro and cast members to the stage.

Tarasuk said, “I never knew I could act, but [director Diego Ongaro] turned me loose to be me and it was easy.”

“Ewe Topia”: By Ben Hillman, a whimsical film with “a bit of comic nonsense” accompanied by Bach’s piece, “Sheep May Safely Graze.”

Here, a piano sits in an ethereal meadow laden with sheep while a young shepherdess holds her guarding stance on top of Johann Sebastian Bach’s piano. Together, they “rock out” to protect themselves from the scheming and dancing goddess Pan.

In the film, a man (played by Williams) arrives late to his best friend’s memorial service and goes off on a comical, unfiltered tangent of emotion and spontaneity of thought while delivering a eulogy exposing his friend’s debt to him of $1,200. Dresser’s brilliant, off-the-cuff humor produced lots of laughter from viewers of the film.

“The Paper Trail”: Produced by Kelly Carty and Jonathon Bee.

Carty and Bee interviewed a series of authors, booksellers, librarians and editors. The film featured notable authors such as Susan Orlean, Simon Winchester, Courtney Maum, Mary Randolf Carter, Spencer Reiss and Peter Richmond, each telling the story of their humble beginnings in publishing up to their dreams of the future in technology and in the writing industry.

“Something Fishy”: Produced and directed by Larry Burke.

The film is about a man who, while lounging by a pond on a warm summer day, decides to don his snorkel gear in a Berkshires pond. To his surprise, he is confronted by colorful sea creatures.

“What We Were”: Written by Jackson Teeley, directed by Wilder Bunke and produced by Corey Potter.

It’s a young musician’s inspiring story of returning to his hometown to “confront the realities of fame, the inevitability of change and the importance of home.”

It is a moving, true story about the mysterious appearance of fairy houses in a suburban neighborhood forest: A family in the tumultuous effects of divorce and how one mother in her attempt to ease her son’s suffering allowed them to get lost in building magical fairy homes for the town.

By JANEL HARRISON, Special to The Eagle

Amidst the perfect backdrop of red velvet curtains and ornate golden balconies of the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, the sixth annual Made In the Berkshires Festival, which began Friday, concluded Sunday with a full day dedicated to independent filmmakers, producers, directors, writers, composers, vocalists, musicians and choreographers.

Local artists collaborated as a close-knit team of passionate professionals to showcase their craft in film.

On the program were nine films, each one diverse in content and ranging from 6 minutes in length to 91.

Each film had ties to the Berkshires, whether through its creators' connections and/or as a backdrop to filming or story lines based here.

Hilary Somers Deely and Barbara Sims, co-curators of Berkshire Theatre Group's Made In the Berkshires Festival, introduced the films.

"I am thrilled," Somers Deely said, "that this has been the most successful Made In the Berkshires yet."

Somers Deely - an actor, director and producer who headed three academic theater programs in leading independent schools - is an emeritus member of the Berkshire Theatre Festival board, a member of the advisory board for the Berkshire Fringe, and, most recently, joined the Fringe in their artists' residency at Mass MoCA in a world premiere production of The Waypoint. Somers Deely has extensive background in theater.

Barbara Sims is an actor, producer, director, whose acting credits include Broadway productions, such as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Noises Off," off-Broadway productions, regional theater, and film and TV credits.

The Made in the Berkshires Festival has "featured cutting-edge theatrical works performed as staged readings, live music, film, short stories and dance in an atmosphere like no other," its website declares.

A list of the films screened Sunday at the Colonial are in the information box to the right.After the credits rolled, filmmakers, writers, producers and photographers were invited to the Colonial's stage for questions from the audience. More than 200 people attended the showing of the films.

AFTER-PARTY

A Meet the Filmmakers: Festival Wrap Party followed under the lights of Hotel On North where plenty of mingling and exchanges of congratulations happened among participants of the films, filmmakers, producers, directors, writers and more. A decadent array of cheeses, breads and spreads were served with imported wines.

In a charming moment with writer Richard Dresser and producer John Whalan of "Goodbye Alan," Dresser said, "The beauty is that Treat [Williams] plays the character in earnest with no malice."

"I am so encouraged," said Kate Maguire, artistic director and CEO of Berkshire Theatre Group, "to be an integral part of this festival and build something with all this talent."

Also in attendance were filmmaker Colin Stevenson who just relocated here from Los Angeles; Julie Bishop, administrator of Black Ice Media; and "Ewe Topia"make-up artist Maria Pizzuro-Cleary, along with her husband Eugene Cleary.

Many folks lounged and socialized on Hotel On North's couches, such as Karen Margolis and Victor Nussbaum of Pittsfield and Francine Bernitz and Steve Seltzer of Dalton.

"Thematically it's wonderful to showcase what's in the Berkshires," said Selzer.

Bernitz added, "The Berkshires is so rich all year around."

The festival on Friday night also paid tribute to actress and director Karen Allen with a sold-out celebration at the Colonial Theatre.

The sixth annual Made in the Berkshires has come to a noteworthy end, but as always, talented artists will continue to stream in honing their craft and getting ready to debut it next year.

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